


Nightmares

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-20
Updated: 2010-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 04:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never dreamed about Gwen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

Morgana loved Gwen. Loved her in the exhilarating, frightening way she had never loved anyone else. In the elusive, bittersweet way she knew she'd never love again. Loved her first, loved her longest, from the shy first moments of girlhood to the brave, bold ones between two women who've spent all their time learning to know each other.

Sometimes, she thought, she loved her best when the day hovered on the edge of night, light slipping into darkness, the air suddenly cooler and the threat of troubled sleep immanent. The nightmares had intensified and the real threat, if Morgana was honest, wasn't that of troubled sleep but of a broken, troubled wakefulness.

But, Gwen, Gwen wasn't part of those dreams and that broken future, at least not yet in any discernible way, and while such absence was chilling, it was, in a strange way, comforting, for her presence here and now was so warm and whole. Morgana watched her move through the bedchamber, followed the flicker of candlelight over her skin, her hair, her clothes, and touched her hand to Gwen's arm as Gwen turned down the bedclothes.

"Do you need anything else? I brought fresh water and the room should stay warm through morning."

"Can you… why don't you stay longer tonight? Stay here with me."

Gwen smiled, the lovely, warm open smile she always had, though it only seemed to last a few seconds longer than it really needed to when the two of them were like this.

Alone. Quiet. Together. More eloquent in touch than in speech. What more was there to say aside from stay and please when those were the only two desires Morgana was able to articulate.

"I can stay as long you like. Do you want –"

"No, not yet. Leave the candles lit? Just for a while until we're ready to go to sleep."

Gwen smiled again and sat down on the bed next to Morgana. They were still for a few seconds and the lamplight flickered against the bedchamber's walls. Morgana started to say something, to try and explain that it wasn't just the desperate need for warmth and comfort that made her want to keep Gwen close, but her breath caught in her throat and Gwen's hand caught her own. The ribbon Gwen had tugged from her hair dropped to her lap and slithered to the floor in a curl of green silk.

She never dreamed about Gwen. Suddenly grateful, Morgana brought Gwen's hand to her lips and kissed the palm.

If she closed her eyes, she'd remember that something dreadful threaded through her feeling of relief. It was always there. They were always there, at the edge of her senses, at the back of her mind, half-forgotten, shreds of memory that try as she might, she couldn't seem to erase completely. Even when they weren't nightmares, just dreams and the fragmented memory of dreams, they felt foreign and haunting, like no memory ever should.

But there were moments, warm and quiet, when Morgana could almost forget. Or, if not forget, she could at least forget to remember and instead concentrate on the strong, skilled fingers that unbraided and untangled her hair.

She never had to ask Gwen to do that for her, to comb her fingers through Morgana's hair in that soothing way she had. Just like she never had to explain to Gwen why she wanted her to stay or spend the night in her chambers.

Morgana leaned closer to feel Gwen's fingers stroke her shoulders and slip into her hair to pull it away from her neck. "The candles?"

The softest, quietest kiss brushed her shoulder and she could feel Gwen smile against her. For a moment, she was gone, a moment after that, the candles blinked out, and only a moment later, the scent of smoke filled the air and a warm body pressed in close to Morgana's.

"My lady," Gwen murmured, lips against skin, and something that felt warmer, safer, and brighter than candlelight flickered inside Morgana.

They made love slowly that night, until the room felt almost too warm and the bed linens were definitely too much against their skin, too rumpled, too heavy. Morgana let Gwen touch her over and over and all over, hands and lips, beneath bed sheets and through the thin material of her shift.

And then, when the soft flame of desire had suffused itself through her limbs and Morgana couldn't let Gwen be that generous any longer, she slipped out of Gwen's arms. In the quiet and in the dark, Morgana whispered all the things she needed to say or needed to hear, secrets and fears and reassurances against the hollow of Gwen's collarbone, between her breasts, over the smooth skin of her stomach.

If Morgana could choose her dreams, if she could ask for some elixir or some bundle of herbs that would fashion them to match her desire, she would choose this: clasped hands, parted lips, panting breath, Gwen stretched out beneath her almost laughing. She'd choose the waft of candle smoke, the slide of silk ribbons through skilled fingers, the press of damp fingers and lips through the thinnest of linen, the smile that must be on Gwen's lips because it had been on her own since they first touched.

Among the dreams, wishes, and choices that cannot be made, there was the one Morgana made years ago and the one she continued to make again and again, to let herself fall completely and, perhaps, dangerously in love. And so, tonight, the wish she made was that she wouldn't dream, but that she would fall into Gwen's arms, happy and sated and not at all scared, and that she would fall asleep while pleasure still shivered through both their bodies and their hearts settled into a slow, steady thrum of cooling desire.

Morgana closed her eyes and didn't remember and didn't forget anything, but Gwen, always Gwen, whom she loved best and loved longest. She'd sleep quietly tonight.


End file.
